The Best of The Breakout Room: 2024 Edition
By reflecting on the past, we can make sense of the future we’re creating
As the curtains close on 2024, I wanted to give you all a yearly wrap up — and a bit of my own personal reflection — to properly close out the year at The Breakout Room.
As a publication, we’ve more than doubled since the close of 2023. Readers such as yourself span across all corners of the world, with 22 U.S. states and 25 countries reading my publication. How wild is that?!
What’s been particularly special is how 50% of my readers are based in the U.S., something which I’m thrilled about having spent a chunk of my time over there this year, with more time to be spent over there in 2025. The U.S. may be having its own reckoning at the moment, but boy does it add a swing to my step every time I get off the plane and step into arrivals, deeply reviving my spirit and sense of self in the process.
My writing has undergone a gentle revolution over the last 12 months. I’ve moved into a writing rhythm I didn’t foresee or expect. I started writing The Breakout Room in September 2023, but it’s only this year, 2024, that I really started to get into the feel of it and what it was going to become.
This piece marks my 27th post this year. I didn’t realise that until now when checking, and even I’m impressed how I kept this up, kept going, regardless of who was reading it and if it was going to be read at all. As a loyal subscriber, I personally want to thank you for following my journey, as well as the readers and writers on Substack who have commented and engaged with my writing on the platform.
For my new readers, I started The Breakout Room as a personal creative outlet having felt incredibly constrained and boxed-in by the dryness of academic and legal writing (of which I write about here in last’s year’s reflection). The subjects I’ve written about have been diverse, although the underlying connection has been looking at them through a human lens and analysing the tectonic shifts that explain the activity and events on the surface. This marks a substantial shift away from the writing I was doing in academia where I was having to analyse and respond to whatever shitstorm was happening in the democracy space, always scrutinising the aftermath of events but never having the opportunity to explain or think about the bigger picture through culture, spirituality, creativity or humanity – essential elements to ponder if you want to really make sense of what’s going on.
2024 has been less about logic for me, more about leaning into my intuition and the invisible connections positively shaping our experiences and lives. It has meant putting myself out there and committing to my creative process; something which I’ve learned is easy to do when you just show up for it, and be open to committing to the ideas once they arrive.
We’ve ranked our top 5 pieces of the year based on the volume of views, so if you need to catch up on — or want to discover — some of our most popular editions of this year (including my favourite!) continue on. And if you’re new to The Breakout Room, or planning on gifting someone a subscription, this post is a great place to get started!
The best of 2024…
1) Political Astrology in the Age of Aquarius
My first post this year, and my most popular! 2024 was a fascinating year in astrology, marking the entry into the Aquarius Age which will last for the next twenty years. The astrological shifts have been mirrored in our political shifts, and it’s a must-read piece for those interested in divinatory practices, politics and history and how they work together.
Looking at history through the lens of astrology has been game changing for me in terms of how I understand history and perceive the future (and I’m saying that as a former Cambridge University academic). Expect more on this subject in future posts!
2) Energy, Power and Political Language
I explore the energetics of political language and question why politicians ignore this at their peril. I share how energy transforms reality, how it impacts political decisions and how it helps us connect with the purpose, process and meaning of government and democracy.
3) Fluke: Power, Perception and Paying Attention
This year I started interviewing guests, and my most popular interview was with Dr Brian Klaas who writes the wildly popular The Garden of Forking Paths which draws on multiple realms of human knowledge. We cover several subjects, including his book Fluke and the academics seeking to break free from being too niche.
This piece takes a deep dive into “the essence of things” which is what gives things meaning, from objects, to people to places. As everything becomes a by-product of marketing, I argue that we need a cultural renaissance of the essence of things to find our way back to ourselves, distinguishing what’s important and what’s just simply window-dressing.
5) Vulture Capitalism: Meaning, Money and Values
My second most popular interview this year was with Grace Blakeley where we talked about her new book Vulture Capitalism and why everything we know about capitalism is wrong.